The Underdogs, a Story of the Mexican Revolution eBook

Demetrio, lying on the rug, seemed to be asleep; Cer-vantes,
who had watched everything with profound in-difference,
pulled the box closer to him with his foot, and stooping
to scratch his ankle, swiftly picked it up. Some-thing
gleamed up at him, dazzling. It was two pure-water
diamonds mounted in filigreed platinum. Hastily
he thrust them inside his coat pocket. When
Demetrio awoke, Cervantes said:

“General, look at the mess these boys have made
here. Don’t you think it would be advisable
to forbid this sort of thing?”

“No. It’s about their only pleasure
after putting their bellies up as targets for the
enemy’s bullets.”

“Yes, of course, General, but they could do
it some-where else. You see, this sort of thing
hurts our prestige, and worse, our cause!”

Demetrio leveled his eagle eyes at Cervantes.
He drummed with his fingernails against his teeth,
absent-mindedly. Then:

“Come along, now, don’t blush,”
he said. “You can talk like that to someone
else. We know what’s mine is mine, what’s
yours is yours. You picked the box, all right;
I picked my gold watch; all right too!”

His words dispelled any pretense. Both of them,
in perfect harmony, displayed their booty.

War Paint and her companions were ransacking the
rest of the house. Quail entered the room with
a twelve-year-old girl upon whose forehead and arms
were al-ready marked copper-colored spots. They
stopped short, speechless with surprise as they saw
the books lying in piles on the floor, chairs and
tables, the large mirrors thrown to the ground, smashed,
the huge albums and the photographs torn into shreds,
the furniture, objets d’art and bric-a-brac
broken. Quail held his breath, his avid eyes
scouring the room for booty.

Outside, in one corner of the patio, lost in dense
clouds of suffocating smoke, Manteca was boiling corn
on the cob, feeding his fire with books and paper
that made the flames leap wildly through the air.

“Hey!” Quail shouted. “Look
what I found. A fine sweat-cover for my mare.”

With a swift pull he wrenched down a hanging, which
fell over a handsomely carved upright chair.

“Look, look at all these naked women!”
Quail’s little companion cried, enchanted at
a de luxe edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy.
“I like this; I think I’ll take it along.”

She began to tear out the illustrations which pleased
her most.

Demetrio crossed the room and sat down beside Luis
Cervantes. He ordered some beer, handed one bottle
up to his secretary, downed his own bottle at one
gulp. Then, drowsily, he half closed his eyes,
and soon fell sound asleep.

“Hey!” a man called to Pancracio from
the threshold. “When can I see your general?”

“You can’t see him. He’s got
a hangover this morn-
ing. What the hell do you want?”
“I want to buy some of those books you’re
burning.”
“I’ll sell them to you myself.”
“How much do you want for them?”
Pancracio frowned in bewilderment.